


Companion

by Dracones95



Category: Metro 2033 - All Media Types
Genre: Betrayal, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracones95/pseuds/Dracones95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavel is assigned to interrogate Artyom, after his capture by the Red Line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companion

_If Pavel manages to lead me through the Red Line guard posts, I'll be home in less than an hour._

Clearly, that had not been Pavel's intention when he led them straight into Red territory, making sure to constantly assure Artyom that he will take care of everything. And if Pavel was really good at something, it was his speeches; the whole musketeer talk, no matter how exaggerated and silly Artyom thought it was, got to him. The overall cheerfulness of this man, in spite of the environment they were trying to survive, which was anything but cheerful, erased any feeling of doubt from his brain. Pavel felt real, a little island of life in an otherwise dead and murky labyrinth of old tunnels.

In other words, he never saw it coming. He barely remembered what happened exactly, as the memories came out blurry and jumbled together, like badly developed photographs. Bolshoi. Girls dancing. Pavel teasing him. Pavel encouraging him to keep drinking. And himself, the big Ranger dumbass, blindly trusting a man that, at least theoretically, was the enemy.

Stupid. Incredibly so. Even if he, somehow, hypothetically, doesn’t get killed in the most painful way those red bastards could come up with, and escapes the Line, Miller will have his head for it being such a dummy. He did, however, find out what happened to the so called Lesnitsky that Ulman had mentioned back at D6. It wasn’t going to help him much, though, the bastard was still loose and most likely providing the Red Line with information about the Order.

“Fantastic,” he muttered through gritted teeth, yanking at the chains that kept his arms raised above his head. The awful smell in the small torture chamber, combined with the drugs that still weren’t fully flushed out of his system, made his head spin, and the air vent didn’t do much of a difference; Artyom eyed the silhouette behind the white curtain in front of his eyes, standing completely immobile. Most likely the source of the stench; God knows for how long that man has been dead.

Fear was slowly starting to seep into his bones, picturing himself in that man’s place, tortured and cut open, forgotten and left to rot. It would take a while for the Order to realize he was missing, even longer to actually find him. He would only have to survive that long, give the reds at least one reason to keep him alive. And there was still the possibility that Miller won’t send anybody to rescue him, and consider him already dead.

 _“Chyort!”_  Pavel was going to pay for what he’s done to him, the way he played him like he was a clueless child. He twisted his hands, trying in vain to get them free; they were starting to get numb anyway. He had never wanted to get back at somebody so badly before; nobody had ever betrayed him like that, made him feel so stupid, so used. 

Back in his room, at D6, hidden in a wooden box underneath old books sat a rusty bayonet. He and Zhenya had found it somewhere around Exhibition and since then he had been keeping it stashed somewhere with his belongings, not throwing it away despite never finding a real purpose for it.

If he was to escape, he would go back to D6, polish the oxidized metal, and slice Pavel’s throat open with it.

The sound of the door opening startled him, making him rattle the chains that kept him from running. He gaped at the person in the doorway.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” he didn’t realize he had spoken out loud, but the amused look on Pavel’s face was a dead giveaway that he had.

“ _Da, da,_ I know. Imagine my surprise.” Again with that cheerful tone that was starting to drive Artyom crazy; when it was just the two of them, it was somehow comforting. He couldn’t deny that Pavel was; had been; great company, always there with a joke or a small motivational speech to keep them going. That man could be torn to shreds by Nosalises and still sound like he was the happiest person alive and nothing was wrong with the world. And now that he thought of it, Artyom wouldn’t mind if he actually got ripped to pieces by Nosalises. The stupid musketeer talk was still floating around his brain, clogging the gears with anger.

His vengeance filled thoughts were interrupted by the scrape of a chair across the dirty floor; Pavel sat on it backwards, spreading his legs obscenely wide, crossing his arms on the backrest and putting his head on top of them. He looked like an oversized puppy, a sneaky one that used its wide, doe eyes to attract unsuspecting people and then viciously bite them.

“I didn’t think Korbut would let me do this if I asked, let alone have him ask me himself.” He spoke, his head bobbing up and down with the movement of his jaw. “I do think it was smart, though.” He rose his head, fixing his piercing blue gaze on Artyom’s face, as if trying to decipher his facial expression. Artyom steeled himself, determined to not let any kind of emotion surface, and allow the other man to see how angry and how hurt he was.

“See, you have some valuable information into that little head of yours, so we've got to try all the methods. Perhaps some chit-chat would get a lot more out of you than a beating, eh, _chuvak?_ What do you say?" Glaring at the major's smiling face, Artyom swallowed around the lump in his throat. That was their technique? Put Pavel in there with him to twist and bend him once again, hoping to get something from him? It was odd, the infamous Red Line not immediately resorting to a violent approach when it came to interrogating their prisoners. 

"You are the last person I want to talk to right now." He spat out, twisting his entire body until the bite of the metal around his sore wrists became unbearable. Pavel's brows furrowed. 

" _Bratishka,_ I am doing you a favor here. Talk to me." Pavel was running his thumb over his bottom lip slowly, back and forth, and Artyom found himself watching, mesmerized by the motion. He didn't know what to make of this whole situation; he had prepared himself for physical torture, but this took him by surprise. He had to change his plan, come up with a speech or at least some way to avoid Pavel's attempts to get inside his head. Again. "If you don't, then I'm gonna leave, and somebody else is gonna waltz in here and beat the shit out of you, and neither I, and definitely nor you, want that." The smile was back on his face. "We're musketeers, remember?"

The mention of that word kicked Artyom's mind back to life.

"First of all, fuck you!" Pavel snorted with laughter, clearly amused by Artyom's outburst. "I'm not gonna tell you shit, you're the reason I'm here in the first place." Pavel stood up, turning his back on his captive and taking a few steps towards the dead body behind the curtain. Artyom watched him run a hand over the top of his head slowly.

"Yes, and I am sorry for that." it was Artyom's turn to let out a short, harsh laugh, though his came out more as nervous and angry than amused.  _I'm sick of your games, Pavel. Just cut it out already. Gloat. Taunt me. Just don't act like you didn't want to do this to me._ "But you must understand that I am merely following my orders, like the good soldier I am." He turned back to his chair, azure pools never leaving Artyom's face; he fixated on a point somewhere above Pavel's left shoulder, staring at it with empty eyes. It wasn't good enough, it didn't justify his actions. That was his reward for saving Pavel's life? That was a piss poor way of showing gratitude to the sole reason why he was still alive.

"Say, do you know the story of Comrade Pavlik?" Before Artyom could respond, Pavel continued. " _Nyet_ , of course you can't possibly know it. It's about this little boy, and guess what, his name's Pavel, too." Artyom opened his mouth to interrupt him, but Pavel held out a hand, silencing him. "And this Pavel's father was an enemy of the people, forging documents and selling them to the bandits. And you know what Pavlik did?"

"I don't suppose he kept his trap shut." Pavel laughed, waving his hand in dismissal.

"No. He denounced him to the authorities. Now, you think this little kid had not loved his father. I doubt that. He did, he respected him, but his duty to the regime was greater than that. He did the right thing." He shifted in his seat, the movement causing Artyom's eyes to fly back at him. His green depths held an amalgam of emotions, from which Pavel could pick out sadness, anger, and pain. "Same with you and me, Artyomichka. You're still my friend, and I am happy that you and I have crossed paths. We just happened to do so at a bad time."

Liar. Liar. Artyom felt he could burst with rage. How dare he? 

"You're full of shit! You still expect me to believe you, after all this..."

“Join the Red Line.” It came out so suddenly and his tone was so low and serious that Artyom’s mouth hanged open for a few seconds, at a loss for words. “This is your last chance. You’re on the wrong side of the barricade.” Pavel's eyes bore holes through his skull. He straightened his back, and tapped his fingers lightly on the wooden surface of his seat, as if impatient for an answer. Artyom suddenly realized that, finally, Pavel got tired of speeches.

"You know that's never gonna happen." Something in Pavel's eyes changed, darkened. He left his seat once more, putting the chair back under the table full of scalpels and scary looking needles that sat way too close to Artyom for his comfort. When he spoke, he reverted back to his cheerful tone, but it felt forced. Wrong. He didn't know what Pavel had expected, after that conversation. That he would buy his lies and that stupid story, change his views and join him. He wasn't interested in getting information out of him. He wanted to recruit him. And this approach was the longest of long shots, yet Pavel seemed somehow disappointed by the outcome.  _Stop playing with me._

He wondered, did Korbut really send Pavel down there? The more he thought of it, the more vividly he could picture the major trying to convince Korbut to let him have a 'little chat' with the prisoner.

"So I take it you're not gonna talk,  _chuvak._ " He said, straightening his jacket. "Well, I'll go inform Korbut that I have, unfortunately for you, failed my mission." He smiled at him widely, but it didn't reach his eyes."What can I say, eh? Don't die, and.. hope to see you again. Under different circumstances, of course." 

The door closed behind him with a loud noise, leaving Artyom to fight a strange urge to shout at him to come back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the accordion that everybody has at least once accidentally played (in the middle of the enemy base, of course)  
> I kept calling Pavel "Paul" for some unfanthomable reason, I fixed them, hope I didn't miss any.


End file.
